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WCTI-TV
Not to be confused with the real WCTI-TV in Greenville/New Bern/Washington, NC. WCTI-TV, virtual channel 26 (UHF digital channel 29), is an independent television station licensed to Charlotte, North Carolina, United States. It is owned by Weigel Broadcasting. History Early history WCTI-TV first signed on the air on February 6, 1968, and has been owned by Weigel Broadcasting since its inception. The station has spent much of its history carrying multi-ethnic entertainment programming. Until 1985, WCTI carried religious programs during the early morning hours. The station ran a simulcast of The Stock Market Observer from Chicago sister station and flagship WEIG – a business news block similar in format to the present-day cable channel CNBC – from about 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. each weekday; the service broadcast from the trading floor of the Chicago Board of Trade. After 6:00 p.m. each weekday, the station ran Spanish language entertainment programming—including controversial bullfighting matches—from the Spanish International Network (the forerunner to Univision). During the weekend, WCTI ran a blend of religious programs, Spanish language programs, paid programming and various other ethnically-oriented shows. Despite signing on late in the 1960's, WCTI remained the only television station in Charlotte that still broadcast its programming in monochrome. Just prior to the Christmas season of 1974, the station installed and tested color transmission equipment, which broadcast on a low-power relay station located in Concord. In November 1974, the color and black-and-white signals traded transmitter facilities for the remainder of the holiday season; on December 31, 1974, the translator was taken offline as channel 26 started to broadcast in color full-time. On February 19, 1982, WCTI signed a multi-year agreement with New Line Network to carry the network's children's program block, the New Line Toon Zone, upon the start of the 1982-83 television season. New Line's primary affiliate in the market, WFSX (channel 46), opted not to renew the block and started to run its morning newscast and an afternoon sitcom block in the time slots where the New Line Toon Zone would normally air on other New Line affiliates. In the summer of 1985, the SIN affiliation was dropped and WCTI became affiliated part-time with NetSpan—which would eventually evolve into Telemundo—shortly thereafter. On October 13, 1988, Telemundo announced intentions to discontinue it's affiliation agreement with WCTI on December 31 of that year, two months later on December 16, the station—whose contract with Telemundo was set to expire the following month—signed an affiliation agreement with Univision, returning the station to that network after two years. The two stations switched affiliations on January 10, 1989. Switch to full-time independence In 1993, Univision asked WCTI to drop all of its English-language programming, including the Stock Market Observer simulcast and the New Line Toons block, and carry the network's programming full-time. WCTI refused, which led Univision to end it's affiliation with the station on December 31, 1994. That summer, Carl Barton hired Gary Zimmerman as WCTI's vice president and general manager, who decided to remake WCTI into a general entertainment independent station. On December 31, 1994, WCTI switched to an English language general entertainment format full-time (with the exception of it's continued broadcast of New Line Toons) and rebranded as "The I". Upon the conversion, channel 26 picked up many hours of syndicated programming inventory, along with newly purchased shows that were not carried by any of the other Charlotte stations. Channel 26's programming began to feature mostly classic sitcoms and drama series (such as The Munsters, Gilligan's Island, Hogan's Heroes, The Rockford Files and Leave It to Beaver). The station also became one of the first Weigel stations to air the revival of the Chicago-based horror/sci-fi movie showcase Svengoolie. Initially, the station continued to simulcast WEIG's Stock Market Observer from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and entertainment programming in all other weekday timeslots and throughout much of the broadcast day on weekends. WCTI then added a weekday block of children's programs from 7:00 to 9:00 a.m. in March 1995. The full Stock Market Observer simulcast was dropped on September 9, 1995. The weekday business news programming was then reduced to a 3½-hour block from 9:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., a move panned by some viewers; although it cited that Weigel had "no intention of killing" the program, the program's niche format and limited ratings and revenue were cited for the simulcast's discontinuation, in order for channel 26 to carry more profitable entertainment programming. By the late 1990s, WCTI began adding more recent sitcoms; the station began to add more syndicated first-run talk and reality shows onto its daytime lineup in 2000. In September 2002, WCTI dropped the afternoon children's block, reducing children's programming to the morning hours. In September 2004, the station dropped New Line Toons' Saturday block, by then almost consisting solely of series imported from sister cable operation Cartoon Network, which moved back to WFSX, resulting in that station clearing the entire New Line network schedule for the first time since 1982. Classic sitcoms gradually disappeared from WCTI's schedule between 2001 and 2004. Early in 2005, the business news format was scaled back to include only the existing syndicated program First Business, which Weigel had assumed production responsibilities for in 2003 after WebFN went bankrupt. That program continued until the end of 2014 under Weigel ownership, and the Chicago Board Options Exchange took over responsibilities for the program after that; it was immediately dropped from WCTI's schedule. Digital television Subchannels In July 2008, Weigel Broadcasting announced the creation of This TV, a national subchannel network operated as a joint venture between Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Weigel. This TV officially launched on WCTI (airing on digital subchannel 26.2, later 26.3) on November 1, 2008. This TV moved to the second digital subchannel of WFSX on November 1, 2013, as a result of the May 13, 2013 announcement that Tribune Broadcasting would acquire Weigel's 50% ownership interest in This TV. Bounce TV began to occupy This TV's former subchannel. On December 1, 2010, WCTI dropped its ethnic programming service FBT on digital subchannel 26.3 and replaced it a simulcast of the station's main channel. Two weeks later on December 15, its programming was shifted to digital channel 26.2 (resulting in This TV moving to digital subchannel 26.3) where it continued to simulcast most of WCTI's main programming. On January 5, 2011, digital subchannel 26.2 was relaunched with its own general entertainment format, branded as "The I Too". The service features some time-shifted programming from WCTI's main channel, including some syndicated programs not seen in the Charlotte market prior to the format conversion. It also broadcast a handful of Queens Royals and other basketball games from the South Atlantic Conference (since 2013, before then Conference Carolinas games were broadcast); "The I Too" currently serves as the over-the-air broadcaster of PDL soccer games from the Charlotte Eagles and AHL hockey games from the Charlotte Checkers. Analog-to-digital conversion On June 12, 2009, the date of the federally mandated switch from analog to digital television for full-power stations, WCTI-TV shut down its analog signal. The station's digital signal remained on its pre-transition UHF channel 29. However, through the use of PSIP, digital television receivers are displaying WCTI-TV's virtual channel as 26. Programming Syndicated programs broadcast on WCTI-TV (as of September 2017) include Pawn Stars, Funny You Should Ask, Couples Court With the Cutlers, Divorce Court, ''At the Movies'', ''Supermarket Sweep'', and ''Body Language''. WCTI-TV also carries the Litton Entertainment-syndicated block Go Time on Saturday morning to comply with FCC educational programming requirements, through a group distribution deal with Weigel Broadcasting's stations. WCTI also carries a block of off-network repeats of adult cartoon series, branded as "The I'z Toons", each Saturday from 3:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. (which, as of September 2016, consists of American Dad!, The Cleveland Show, King of the Hill, Family Guy and Bob's Burgers). The block originally ran from 5:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. when it debuted in September 2015, before being expanded by two hours on September 16, 2016, coinciding with the addition of Bob's Burgers to the lineup. Newscasts Alongside the Stock Market Observer simulcast from WEIG, WCTI's first standalone local news programming effort debuted in 1968, when it launched a half-hour weeknight 11:00 p.m. newscast titled Black News, a program focusing on news relevant to Charlotte's African American community and commentary. The program was cancelled in 1982. In September 2009, WCTI debuted You and Charlotte This Morning, a weekday morning program featuring a broad mix of entertainment news, lifestyle features and weather forecasts. The program—which effectively maintains a lighter format, which does not incorporate conventional general news segments—originally aired in the form of locally produced inserts of varying length interspersed within what otherwise was a three-hour block of syndicated programming on WCTI from 6:00 to 8:00 a.m. Although it trails behind all other morning programs the program competes against in the ratings, viewership for the program has increased since its debut; in particular, its ratings doubled from an average of 40,000 viewers in May 2012 to 73,000 in May 2014. You & Charlotte This Morning expanded into a full three-hour program (running from 6:00 to 9:00 a.m.) on September 8, 2014. On June 14, 2017, WCTI announced that it would launch The Jam Charlotte, a new morning show that would replace You and Charlotte This Morning in the 6:00 to 7:00 a.m. timeslot that summer at a date to be determined. The program, which would promise to be bold and unfiltered, will feature a mix of local and national news headlines (as well as opinions on the featured stories by its hosts), entertainment and pop culture news, and weather forecasts. The program's concept is based in part on The Daily Buzz, a syndicated morning news program that ran from 2002 to 2015. On August 7, 2017, WCTI replaced the final two hours of You and Charlotte This Morning during the 7 a.m.-9 a.m. time slot with the syndicated morning program EyeOpener, which debuted that day. Category:Charlotte, NC Category:North Carolina Category:South Carolina Category:Weigel Broadcasting Category:Independent stations Category:Channel 26 Category:Television channels and stations established in 1968 Category:Former Univision affiliates Category:Former Telemundo affiliates Category:Former NetSpan affiliates Category:Former SIN affiliates Category:Former New Line Network affiliates